


Bits and Pieces

by RosieTarnation



Category: Dickinson (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTarnation/pseuds/RosieTarnation
Summary: In the weeks following Sue's wedding, Emily gets herself used to her new life.  She was writing more than ever and she was a poet.So what happens when her father finds one of her poems?Or, Emily comes to an important and inevitable realization.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	Bits and Pieces

Another day of chores done, another apron left full of scraps of paper covered in bits and pieces of Emily's poetry.  
  
This was the compromise she'd made with herself. No, not a compromise - an honest plan. A commitment to living her life both as a person who lives in her house with her family - with her father and the newfound distance between them, her mother and her declining health, and Lavinia and her newfound confidence and independence - and as a poet.  
  
She stepped up, contributed in the way she was expected to and also helped pick up the slack from her mother's illness. She did her work, writing down poems as the inspiration struck on whatever paper she could find. When her chores were done, she stayed in her room, writing and editing and reading and compiling her own books of poetry and reading others.  
  
She did a lot of thinking, too. She thought about how things were broken with Austin. She thought about how she was going to make things right with Sue. She thought about how, in the year leading up to her father's election and in the two years that constituted his congressional term, she saw him more infrequently than ever, but also saw him more clearly than ever.  
  
She had meant it, on the day of the wedding, when she told her father that she was a poet and that she'd be a poet right there in her home, in his house, and there was nothing he could do about it.  
  
And she was accepting it. This way of living was working for her. She was coming around to the fact that just because her relationship with her mother was nonexistent, it didn't mean that her relationship with her father was good. It was better than her other parental relationship, but not good.  
  
One night, a couple weeks after the wedding, she was about to head up to her room after finishing her chores.  
  
"Going to bed, dearie?" Maggie asked.  
  
"Going upstairs," Emily said. "Are you fixing the clock?"  
  
"Yeah," Maggie said, frowning a bit as she worked on a particularly stubborn piece of the machinery. "Your mother said the ticking was too loud, so I'm seeing what I can do about that."  
  
Emily nodded. A past version of her would have made some sort of comment, but she kept it to herself. "Thanks," she settled on.  
  
"Good night," Maggie said, offering her a smile.  
  
"Good night, Maggie."  
  
Emily turned to go upstairs, but she heard something clatter to the floor.  
  
"Here," she said, bending and picking up the wrench that had slipped out of Maggie's hand.  
  
"Thanks," Maggie said, and Emily went upstairs.  
  
She went up and went into her room, shutting her door, and spilling the spoils of her pockets out onto her desk.  
  
She looked through them, organizing them into a night pile for her review. Then she looked through them again. One was missing.  
  
She quickly rushed down the stairs, but stopped when she was about halfway down, just to the point where people at the bottom of the stairs couldn't see her.  
  
"Emily wrote this?" she heard her father say.   
  
She retreated up the stairs further, not sure she wanted to hear her father's opinion on her poem.  
  
"It's good, isn't it?" Maggie asked, earning a small grin from Emily.  
  
"You Irish like your poetry, don't you?" Mr. Dickinson asked. "What do you think?"  
  
"I think she's talented, sir," Maggie said. "And skilled. We don't have poets like this in Ireland, not that I've read."  
  
"Why would she write a poem on a scrap of paper like this?" Mr. Dickinson asked. "I thought she was serious about this venture of hers."  
  
"She is," Maggie said. "She just wrote that in a second between chores."  
  
"She hasn't edited this?" Mr. Dickinson asked. Emily could hear the surprise in his voice. "This is good, even better than the one she published."  
  
"Have you told her you liked her work?" Maggie asked.  
  
Emily knew her father well enough that in the short silence between the end of Maggie's question and the beginning of his answer, some switch had flipped. He wasn't having a casual chat with someone he knew anymore. He was back in the mode he was most comfortable in, back in the mode he relied on, back in the mode he hid in.  
  
"Finish up on the clock, Maggie. The ticking annoys Mrs. Dickinson," he said. Emily could hear him retreating back into his office. "Good night."  
  
"Good night, sir."  
  
Emily heard the office door shut. She gave it a few more seconds then headed downstairs.  
  
"I think I dropped that," she said, reaching for the slip in Maggie's hand.  
  
"I think you did," Maggie agreed, handing it to her.  
  
"Did you read it?"  
  
"No," Maggie said, with a firm shake of her head that assured Emily that she was telling the truth. "I wasn't sure you were ready to share it. Your father heard me drop the wrench, he came out and found it."  
  
Emily nodded. She had her missing poem, she should go back upstairs.  
  
But there was some feeling in her chest, gnawing away at her, and she knew it wasn't going to just go away. She knew she should deal with it.  
  
"He's never going to admit he likes my work, is he?"  
  
"I don't think so, dear," Maggie said. "I'm sorry."  
  
"He said it's good," Emily said, voice low and angry and sad and tired and, still, resigned. "And he can't even say that to me."  
  
Maggie looked at her, knowing that whatever words she could find wouldn't be enough. She put a hand on Emily's shoulder.  
  
"You know they're good," she said anyway. "And you're not the reason he isn't saying these things."  
  
Emily returned her smile, putting her hand over Maggie's for a moment before stepping back. "I'm going to go upstairs," she said, suddenly sounding very tired. "For real this time."  
  
"Good night, Miss Emily."  
  
"Good night," Emily said. "Thank you for finding this. I guess it fell out of my apron."  
  
"It's a hazard of the job," Maggie winked.  
  
"What do you keep in your apron pockets, Maggie?" Emily felt a semi-scandalized smile spread across her face.  
  
"Ah, we all have our secrets," Maggie grinned.  
  
Emily went upstairs, still smirking.   
  
She went back into her room, shut the door, and set the poem among the others. She sat down, picked up her pen.  
  
Then, she got to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Alright so we know in history, Mrs. Dickinson's health really declines in the late 1850s going into the 1860s. Also, in real life, Emily realllly didn't get on well with her mother. Also, the show's timeline is very weird but Sue and Austin in real life were engaged for three years and the stretch of time from Mr. Dickinson running for office and leaving office would be about three years (a year before the election, then a two year term). So, this story runs on the assumptions that 1) season 1 took place over three years and 2) Mrs. Dickinson's declining health (alluded to in season 1 primarily through her depression and alcoholism) will be a big part of season 2.
> 
> Also an early version of this included Ben instead of Maggie doing basically what Maggie does in this story, but with Ben's death the timeline was confusing and I thought it would've been too complicated to try to wedge this in. But I do think Maggie is someone Emily is close with and is someone with enough mutual care and respect that they can have the conversation they have at the end. They both know Mr. Dickinson and they both can see that he's never going to let Emily feel supported by him with her poetry. So it worked out, I think. Also! I am of the (commonly held among historians) belief that while Emily and Ben were very close in real life, they were not in a romantic relationship! It was more of a mentor/mentee situation and they were good friends with a lot of mutual respect and admiration. And honestly if I included Ben in the story I'd have gone on a whole tangent about this but I decided to use Maggie and put this tangent here in the notes. Also I love Maggie.
> 
> Anyway thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think!


End file.
